The Dominion THURSDAY, JULY 28, 1927. A MEANS TO INCREASE OUR WEALTH

Dominion, Volume 20, Issue 256, 28 July 1927, Page 8

The Dominion THURSDAY, JULY 28, 1927. A MEANS TO INCREASE OUR WEALTH

The action of the Government, as announced by the Minister of Agriculture in setting aside £BOOO, throughout the coming dairy season for the purpose of subsidising the herd-testing associations in in their work should be heartily commended both by rural and city interests The Government has always been’sympathetic to this cause and the requests that have been made for co-operative action and subsidy, but the difficulty has been to lay down a satisfactory base for standardised practice and administration. These difficulties, it is proposed to surmount, by the appointment of a small board to work with the combined herd-testing associations. What herd testing can do'for all farmers is best shown. by what it has done for some. Under examination on that basis it is demonstrable that with the same number of stock, the. same aiea of land, and the same or even less physical effort, our dairying community can by the sustained use of herd testing, supplemented by •rood breeding and selection, earn on the present .price-level an additional income of £7,000.000 annually. That figure is almost staggering, bUt Kerens prooFtaken from the facts of the largest herd-testing group of the Dominion: the New Zealand Herd-Testing Association operating in the South Auckland Province. This association started with ail average of 2071 b. butter-fat per cow, and in its fourth year raised the average of its 60,000 cows to 2551 b. The Dominion average is assessed at 1801 b. per cow. If all cows had attained the association’s average in the past season, the Dominion s , extra income would have approximated seven millions sterling. Nor should that average be set as the ultimate goal. It has in itself been far transcended, as the Minister of Agriculture indicated, by the best group in the association’s circle,, which, comprising 29 herds containing 16Q0 cows, returned an individual average ot these figures mean in hard cash is .simply that where a farmer with one hundred acres and 40 ordinary cows would net an' income of approximately £350, he would with stock of this better standard net an income of approximately £750, without an increase in overhead costs. Simply by better stock and a fuller production. Since the benefits of herd testing are so demonstrable, it might be said- Why should the Government subsidise the effort? Ihe answer is: For both the individual and national good. Greater production by the individual will react not only to his own but to the national welfare. Experience shows the cost of testing to approximate ss. a cow. A man with one hundred, cows may hesitate to face a definite pay-out of £25 to earn an anticipatory increase. A Government subsidy of Is.—which has been the figure usua y mentioned—will be taken as a gesture of sympathy with farmers and confidence in the tenets of testing; and, human nature being what it is, the farmer, to get- that little something for nothing, will more readily incur the necessary individual expense. Bluntly, the Government is throwing a sprat to catch a mackerel, but the .mackerel is one upon which the, whole community will fatten—an increased prosperity in our best spending class, the fanning community. Hess than a fifth of the Dominion’s dairy herds have so far undergone test. It is certain that the Government’s action will initiate a big forward movement, and that for every shilling so expended out of the common fund, pounds will be returned in increased revenue resulting from better farms and better business following upon an accession of prosperity in the rural community. In our Dominion economics there is no question but that the welfare of the cities is dependent upon the prosperity of the countryside,; and with this fillip our major industry should go forward to new heights of attainment.